Signora Bene

Friends of the Signora Rachele Mussolini were glad to believe, last week, a pleasant story illustrative of her undoubted goodness of heart. It is told that, prior to the birth of the bambino Romano Mussolini (TIME, Oct. 10), she learned how intolerable was the lot of some 600 antiFascists then exiled upon blistering, volcanic islands off the coast of Sicily. Acutely sensible of the sufferings of others, she was moved to intercede with the Signor Benito Mussolini. Soon it became known that some at least of the 600 exiles would be released. Last week a round, generous 300 were allowed to return to their homes. Among them were seven onetime deputies, two priests, numerous journalists. . . .

Not the least curious fact concerning the Signora Rachele Mussolini is that her very name is unmentioned in the sole authorized biography of Il Duce, a volume of 352 pages in which space is found to depict several mistresses. Thus this great lady is the ideal Italian type of completely self-effacing signora por bene--a phrase which cloaks her with all the matronly virtues and proclaims that, as befits Caesar's wife, she is transcendently above suspicion.

Born in a poor stone hut, there is now no palace that the native peasant girl of the Romagna might not enter. She has been a toiler in the fields, a gatherer of grapes, a shepherdess, a household servant, even a tavern tap-wench. Today, by a pretty pirouette of Fate, she is the consort of a man on whom Italy has bestowed the Collar of the Annunziata. He who wears that supreme badge and his wedded wife are both legally "cousins of the king."

Picturesque is the story of how the tavern keeper Allessandro Mussolini--father of Benito--warned his tap-wench Rachele Agostini against his son. "Do not let yourself think of that young man," he is said to have said. "It would be better to throw yourself under a train. Married to him you will have neither happiness nor peace."